Denis Diderot Quotes
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Distance is a great promoter of admiration!
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If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.
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Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.
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Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
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When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.
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The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
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When shall we see poets born? After a time of disasters and great misfortunes, when harrowed nations begin to breathe again. And then, shaken by the terror of such spectacles, imaginations will paint things entirely strange to those who have not witnessed them.
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Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
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The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.
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It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.
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It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
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The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
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From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
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Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.
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The following general definition of an animal: a system of different organic molecules that have combined with one another, under the impulsion of a sensation similar to an obtuse and muffled sense of touch given to them by the creator of matter as a whole, until each one of them has found the most suitable position for it shape and comfort.
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His hands would plait the priest's guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings.
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The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.
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Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
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Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
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Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
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Good music is very close to primitive language.
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No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
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Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
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There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.